Particle identification below threshold with AMS-02 RICH detector

Research paper by Ziyuan Li, Carlos Delgado, Francesca Giovacchini, Julia Hoffman, Sadakazu Haino

Indexed on: 07 Nov '16Published on: 07 Nov '16Published in: arXiv - Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors

Abstract

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) was installed on the International Space Station (ISS) and it has been collecting data successfully since May 2011. The main goals of AMS-02 are the search for cosmic anti-matter, dark matter and the precise measurement of the relative abundance of elements and isotopes in galactic cosmic rays. In order to identify particle properties, AMS-02 includes several specialized sub-detectors. Among them, the AMS-02 Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector (RICH) is designed to provide a very precise measurement of the velocity and electric charge of particles. A method to reject the dominant electron background in antiproton identification using the AMS-02 RICH detector as a veto will be described. By using the collected cosmic-rays data, electron contamination can be well suppressed within 3% with $\beta \approx 1$, while keeping 76% efficiency for antiprotons below the threshold.